Meta

culture

In Risk & Culture (1982), Mary Douglas & Aaron Wildavsky pointed to an intimate relationship between fear & values. People typically feared things that threatened to undermine their way of life. To date, I’ve been thinking about this in the context of the 1980s & toxic fear. But consider how it resonates in contemporary American culture & politics. In a posthumous follow-up titled But Is It True? (1995), Wildavsky pursued the argument further. “Hierarchists fear social deviance, individualists fear regulation, and egalitarians fear technology” (440). That requires a little reflection. But, all of a sudden, “what are you afraid of?” becomes a critically poignant question to ask. And we might also consider the ways in which fears & values evolve over time.